Artful animation with the Zimmer Twins!

Zimmer Twins

Another simplistic yet versatile moviemaking website devoted to creative storytelling. Originally developed from the Canadian cartoon network, Zimmer Twins allows learners to create endings for movies by choosing actions, backgrounds and props. Learners also could add their own dialogues or on-screen text for movie narration. Alternatively, they could start creating movies from scratch and let their creativity runs wild! 

Zimmer Twins - The Nuts and Bolts

In this section, I'll point out several rules or basic working aspects for using the Zimmer Twins.

1. Zimmer Twins account is a MUST: 

One thing that users need to know before using this tool is that you need to have a Zimmer Twins account in order to save all your work.  

Figure 1: Go to the left column of the homepage and click 'Join Zimmer Twins'. You'll be directed to the sign up form. 

2. Recreate your username and password: 

Signing up could be a tricky thing for this tool (at least for me) because you need to first sign up and fill in the form using parental email and confirm it first by verifying the link the website sent you, and later, go back to the sign up page and create your own student username and password. Then, again you have to verify the link sent and finally you'll be able to have a full access to the website as a free user. I lost my work (3 times!) due to this password confusion and ended up feeling all annoyed before I figured things out 20 minutes later. It's imperative for me to highlight this point at the very beginning of our discussion because I don't want you to be trapped with the same problem over and over. So first thing first, sign up for  your Zimmer Twins account before you start creating your movie strips.

3. Start story telling - Pick a starter or start from scratch:

Click Make A Movie and you'll be directed to the menu page. Users can choose to create endings for the starters or you can be creative  instead and make a new one. 

4.Customization - Choose characters, props, settings and actions:

Movie editing comes handy with the Zimmer Twins. There are a wide range of props, settings and actions to choose from and they are all effortlessly easy to be changed. Other editing features include  the delete button where you can just click on the slide in your movie line and remove it right away. Users can also drag back the slides into the props/settings/actions/characters box if they decided to change or remove them.

Figure 3: The main editing functions are circled in red. 

5. Previewing feature:

Akin to Dvolver and the Microsoft Movie Maker, Zimmer Twins allows for a view function which is essential for final editing process before movies are saved. Editing is made possible during the viewing by just clicking the Stop button to pause and directly change the slide without having to wait till the preview ends. You can save your work once you're done.

6. Feedback section:

Because Zimmer Twins is primarily designed for language development purpose, it comes with Comments, Rating and Favourite functions which are crucial for providing users with feedback on how they could improve their movie animation. This tool also allows users to share their movie links which helps them to gain wider viewers for their artful work. 

Figure 4: Zimmer Twins and language development element.

Click to view the full version of A Narrow Escape movie: Nako90

Other Plus Points: 

• Visually appealing for learning!
• Sets a purpose and motivation for classroom learning.
• A tool for personalized artwork: students can get creative by creating their movies individually.
• Background sound effects to replace the voiceless animation.
• Free (albeit the signing up process could be a tedious one).

Cautions!

• Limited words for bubbles.
• Total of 53 animation strips per movie.
• Poor sharing capabilities: manual copy-paste-link-in-sites needed. Users can't directly embed their work in blogs. 
• Once published, movies are no longer editable.
• If movies are shared via emails, the recipient must have Zimmer Twins account in order to view the animations.
• Limited actions, props and characters. Membership upgrade's needed for more options.

Ideas for Using The Zimmer Twins in Classrooms? Here are some!

Creative story telling: 
Teacher starts the story and ask students to work in pairs or individually to create their own ending. The story may begin with a prompt using action clips or dialogues between the characters. 

Chained story writing:
Suitable for classrooms with limited computers or laptops for students. Teachers only requires a computer and a projector for this activity. Similar to the creative story telling, the teacher starts the story and ask students in pairs to come up to the computer and continue the story. The fact that students have to adopt and alter their imagination to fit the plot requires a higher order thinking and more creativity as compared to the previous activity. Chained story writing could be cognitively challenging and fun for learning. 

Getting students to talk:
Besides writing, this tool could be exploited for speaking tasks such as predicting the ending of the story. Teacher will show the animation prompt to the class and have students to work in pairs and exchange their predictions of the ending. 

Rating on Zimmer Twins's Usefulness:

3 1/2 

Audio Podcasting: Vocaroo it!

Podcasting in pedagogical realm is nothing but a new discovery. It is until recently that educators from all parts of the world are beginning to realize how convenient sharing audio and video files is in teaching and learning. Unfortunately, the discussion on how it could be integrated into teaching is less than clear and rather limited for teachers. It is my hope that this entry on audio podcasting will help to give readers, particularly teachers more insights into what, why and how it could be exploited for classroom purposes.

Podcasting Defined: 

Imagine getting new radio-style talk and music shows to listen to on your iPod or other MP3 player every day. You wake up and automatically have new shows ready to listen to while you exercise or commute to work. This is the podcast listening experience. In the 'geek-speak' jargon, a podcast is defined as a web feed of multimedia digital file (audio, video etc) that is placed on the Internet for users to download. 

There are thousands of audio podcasts being published for global audiences covering a multitude of topics for English language but the one that gets to steal the limelight for this entry is Vocaroo, the simplest audio recording software in the entire universe. 

So What is Vocaroo?

Vocaroo is one of the audio recording softwares available online and widely used for podcasting purposes. Others include Audacity, Evoca, PodBean and so forth. It works akin to voice recorders in your mobiles. 

How to Vocaroo?

1. Click to record.
2. Click to save your recording.
3. Click to send or share your recording.

Yes, it takes only 3 easy steps for a 5 minute Vocaroo audio clip. Super effortless! If this sounded like a real joke to you then you really have to see this tutorial for yourself and you'll be amazed with this mini audio podcast tool: Russell Stannard's Vocaroo Tutorial.

Figure 1: Where the fun begins. 

Alternatively, you can have your audio uploaded with a limit of 50MB per file. It may be worth making it explicit here that Vocaroo is a basic audio recording tool so if you're expecting a cutting edge voice recorder with editing, cutting or mixing audio functions, I'm sorry but I have to disappoint you for that. 

Figure 2: Review & try again buttons.

Albeit Vocaroo lacks in edit functions which may rate down the usefulness aspect of the tool as a whole, it still offers you with 'Listen' and 'Retry' buttons where you can always review your recording first before deciding to save it or re-record a new one. So fret not if your students get baffled or stumped in the middle of the recording process because with Vocaroo, there will be always second chances for a new one. 

Figure 3: Sharing options.

One lesson I learned from this web tool is that don't judge a tool by its size. Vocaroo really blew me away and I was so impressed with its sharing capabilities: it offers more than 300 sharing mediums. It's totally a tiny, simple, ordinary tool yet has so much sharing power to let the world hear your students' ideas! Besides sharing you can have the audio downloaded as MP3s, Oggs, FLACs or WAVs to keep them with you in your playlist.

Vocaroo in Teaching: The Whys

Reading and listening is NOT enough: 

Getting the students to use the correct grammar versus getting them to have fun with the language to be a fluent language user; it's the same debate over and over again. For me, fluency comes first. It's about preparing your students to apply the language outside the learning context, in real life situation. Reading, listening and speaking may be the most important aspects of any language, but it is only speaking that is requisite for them to become a fluent reader. ESL learners may have limited time for practising English at school but with Vocaroo, they can record anything, anytime, anywhere and have it saved or shared with their friends and teachers. It's the digital journal for personal or pedagogical purposes.

Pronunciation Checker:

For teachers, Vocaroo could be the best medium to assess students' progress on pronunciation. Have students to read aloud a reading text, listen back to their recorded audio and compare their recordings with the authentic one. Students will be surprised to see how much similar or different their audio podcasts will be and this is where teachers could inductively pin point some stress or intonation for standard English pronunciation.

Digital storytelling with confidence:

Students recording a Vocaroo podcast do not have to identify themselves by real names at all. In fact there is no need for images or fancy photos as voice is the only aspect that matters for audio podcasts. Shy and bashful students may find it intimidating to speak or be vocal in front of the whole class, hence, with Vocaroo, learning opportunities are made more accessible for this group of learners, giving teacher more insights into their learning ability. 

A window into the classroom:

Why not use Vocaroo beyond just assessing fluency and practising speaking? Teachers don't have to wait for the annual PTA meeting just to be able to talk to parents about students' achievement in school. Exploit Vocaroo to collect or give feedback to parents addressing the issues students are studying or the new things they are learning. Alternatively, teachers can also use this tool to gain feedback from the students or give them feedback on how they are doing in class personally. 

The Other Goods:

• Free: The most inexpensive way to create digital content for your classroom.
• Invites global audiences: 325 sharing options to choose from!
• User-friendly: Only needs 3 steps of record, publish & publicise, and you are good to go.
• Highly engaging: it gets students to talk without having them feeling 'forced' to. 

Caution: The Bads!

• Limited sharing size: Only accounts for 5 mins recording / 50MB file or less.
• No microphone, no talk. 
• No edit functions.

Need more ideas for audio podcast teaching content? Here are some useful links:

1. Education Podcasts
2. iTunes
3. Podcasts: Read, Write, Think.
4. BBC Learning English

Click on the Vocaroo link for the conclusion:

Record music with Vocaroo >>

Rating on Vocaroo's Usefulness

4/5

ANNOUNCEMENT!

A short announcement for all. Click below to listen:

Record and upload voice >>

Wordle, Wordsift and Tagxedo: So similar yet so different!

Hello again! 

It's been awhile after my last post on Brainshark so today I gonna make up for the long hiatus and share with you 3 useful web tools which come from the same root of the Word Cloud ancestry: the Wordle, the Wordsift and the Tagxedo.

But before we get to know each of these word cloud brothers up close and personal, let me just quickly list the general attributes of the Word Cloud ancestry that they do share in common. 

Word Cloud Ancestry: What are they?

• A visual representation of text data which usually used to depict tags or keywords on websites. In simpler words, word clouds eat up chunks or lenghty texts and digest them into graphical text clouds. 
• Come with various editing functions such as font, layout and colour schemes. 
• Auto sizing capability: The more frequent the word appears in the text, the larger it shows up in the word cloud. 
• They intent to make life easier for humans: reading, summarizing, predicting and so forth. 
• Free: no sign up required. 

Wordle, Wordsift & Tagxedo brothers: The Eldest, The Introvert and The Extrovert

How Do These Siblings Look Like? 


Wordle:

Figure 1: The homepage.

1. Users can click on the 'create' link to start working with the Wordle cloud tag. 
2. Gallery gives you access to view some samples of Wordles designed by other users.
3. Credits is where you'll discover the faces behind the Wordle. 
4. News, Forums and FAQ are where you should visit if you have questions about troubleshooting problems, how to use Wordle and so forth. 'Forums' also includes some comments and discussions from other users, parents and so forth.

Figure 2: The Great Gatsby synopsis (source: Wiki) with 'Rounder Edges' and 'Any Which Way' layout.

1. Language: Users can sift and remove any unwanted languages or numbers from the text. 
2. Layout: Arrange or sequence your cloud texts alphabetically, vertically, horizontally or with rounder / straighter edges. Users can also limit the numbers of words per cloud. 
3. Print: Quick and easy printing feature.
4. Randomize: The faster way of customizing your cloud. Your Wordle is just a click away!
5. Save to public gallery: By clicking this, your Wordle will be made viewable by the entire internet and there is no way to delete it. Think twice if there's any personal information in your Wordle. 

CAUTION: Without Java script, all these talks about Wordle are useless: you need to have it installed first before wordling.

Rating on Wordle's Usefulness: 3/5

Wordsift:

Figure 3: The homepage.

Wordsift's instructions are rather straight forward. To get started, just copy your text into the box and click 'Sift'. This will bring you to the next page (see below).

Figure 4: The Great Gatsby synopsis marked with 'Social Studies' category.

1. Sort: Filter your text in cloud from rare to common or common to rare or alphabetically.
2. Create Workspace: Forget scrolling down your page and just squish the text cloud away. It'll give you more space to work with the thesaurus and the Google pictures. A tool that can't be any friendlier! :)
3. Mark: Need to find words related to specific subject areas? Wordsift's up to challenge! Choose from  various categories and related words are highlighted in orange coloured font instead of green. Eg: In Figure 2, American, constitution and state are words that are linked to Social Studies. 
4. Google Image: Helps users to visualize words in cloud tag. You can make the pictures draggable by just clicking on the link right at the top of the search engine.
5. Visual Thesaurus Dictionary: Wordsift will show you the synonyms or nearest words related to the word you choose in the cloud box.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: The only drawback that this introvert has is that it does allow direct text cloud printing, unlike Wordle or Tagxedo. Wordsift may lack of certain features and may not give you fancy text clouds with colours, layouts and all but hey, it has everything so what's there not to love? 

Rating on Wordsift's Usefulness: 4/5

Tagxedo:

Figure 5: The homepage.

1. Create or Start Now: Lets start Tagxedoing! 
2. Gallery: Why don't have a quick look at other Tagxedos before creating your own? :)
3. Shop: Couldn't get enough of Tagxedo cloud tags? Prolly shopping will help! 

Figure 6: Tagxedo's working board. 

1. Load: Paste your selected text or URL here.
2. Respins: Customizing functions like any other word cloud generators. 
3. Options: The special feature unlike any others. 'Shape' allows you to have creative cloud texts with loads of fascinating shapes to choose from. Want to personalize your Tagxedo even more? Sure. Click 'Add Image' to upload your own pictures or your loved ones! 'History' will collect all of your work so no need for you to save 2 or 3 Tagxedos for the same text! 

Figure 7: The Great Gatsby synopsis in Lincoln shape.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: Tagxedo really gives me a special feeling of personal attachment to my work. I feel like I own it. Sometimes I just love experimenting with my own photos to see how my text cloud would turn out. Unlike Wordle and Wordsift, it too offers me with a wider sharing medium as it allows for sharing my word clouds in Twitter & Facebook by just posting the links. 

Rating on Tagxedo's Usefulness: 4/5

Learning Point of View: Why Word Clouds?

Impacts of colours in learning: 

There is no doubt that colours enhance readability and clarity in the texts as well as graphic elements. Because word cloud generators come with colour schemes and wide range of fancy fonts to choose from, it is argued that they play a key role in promoting students' attentiveness to reading text and thus, facilitates the reading comprehension process. Colours too increase learners' motivation and have the magical power to get bored students engaged actively with reading activity. 

Chunking and repackaging information:

For most of us, be it for learners or teachers, information is better absorbed when it is packaged into digestible bits or chunks. The difference between typical lengthy boring reading texts with the word clouds is that information processed via these tools has 'doable' impression on students as some of the keywords of the texts can be easily spotted, which would ultimately enhance their recalling process and reading comprehension as a whole. 

Get Creative in Teaching: Some Suggested Classroom Activities

Pre-reading tasks:

Word clouds and warmer activities are two inseparable components. Have a word cloud with the words from the reading text displayed to the class before starting with a reading passage and ask students to make prediction about the content or gist of the text. 

Word Cloud Summary:

Aims at enhancing comprehension of any reading texts including literatures. Have a reading passage or a chapter of a novel and wordle it. Distribute a copy of a Wordle version of the text (or show it to the class via projector) and discuss about the summary of the text. Alternatively, you can give students a Wordle summary of a non-fiction reading and ask them to generate a headline or title before they deal with the real article.

Word Cloud Poll:

Have students to reflect on their lesson or reading article based on a prompt, for example: What do you like about the article? What you learned from the text? Which part of the lesson today you enjoyed most/least? Collect their reflections into a Wordle. The largest word that appears in the text cloud indicates the highest and most voted response from learners. Teachers could also use Word Cloud Poll for ice-breaking activities or poll the class about their interests or likings.

Word Cloud Art:

Use Tagxedo to create posters for 'Environmental Appreciation Day'. Students could work in pairs or in groups depending on the difficulty of the theme and time allocated for completing the task. Encourage them to be creative by using imported photos from Google images, Flickr or Tumblr. They can add extra handwritten details too to make the poster more presentable. Use peer feedback and success criteria of a good poster when assessing students' work. 

Speed Sentence Writing:

Display a word cloud with some English vocabulary (could be of any topics) and tell students that have 5 or 7 minutes to write as many sentences as they can using the words displayed. This could be done in pairs or in groups. 

Brainshark: The Birth of e-Learning and Creativity.

If you are looking for a convenient way of developing and delivering your learning or teaching materials, I think you've just found one: The Brainshark. 

What is Brainshark?

It is a web-based application that enables users to transform their Power Point slides and other content materials (documents, videos, PDFs etc) into voiced-enriched presentations for educational, training, business and other purposes. In other words, Brainshark enables you to narrate your own contents with just 2 simple steps:

1. Upload: Get your materials uploaded in the Brainshark web and it will automatically convert your content.
2. Record: Use computer microphone to start narrating your presentations. Even simpler, you can use your    mobile if you're on the go. 

Don't worry if your slide shows have loads of animation actions, Brainshark will efficiently show them all during your narrating process. 

Getting To Know Brainshark:

It's always a good idea to get yourself familiar with the tool first before you start using and exploiting it for your learning or teaching purposes. In this section, we'll explore some of the key features that make Brainshark a cutting edge tool that is distinctive from others of its kind. 

Figure 1: The homepage

To start working with the Brainshark, you can click on Try It For Free button and you'll be directed to a sign-up page where you're required to create your own Brainshark account. This will only take you a minute and once you're all set up, you can directly log in. 

Akin to Lyrics Training, Brainshark is also equipped with a friendly option buttons where you can search and filter your contents according to your tags and categories. Notice the blue box with the Brainshark's uses on the right hand side of the page and the upload button above it. This is where the distinctive element comes in: other reviewed web tools apparently do not have such great uses as Brainshark does. Intervue only offers videoed interviews with limited (60s) responses, Bubblr only accounts for pictorial strips with no animation feature while Dvolver only favours limited movie animation.

Brainshark, on the other hand, allows for (at least) 5 main uses:

• Voiced-Power Point Presentation
• Voiced-Document Presentation
• Voiced-Video Demo
• Voiced-Photo Album
• Creating podcasts.

Note that these features are available for a FREE version of the tool. If you get yourself a PRO Brainshark account, there will be more interesting functions (Guessbook, Polls) await you. In other words, Brainshark is the upgraded version of all the reviewed web tools which offers more advanced functions and uses. 

Figure 2: The working board

To start working, get your Power Point slide show uploaded, or if you're a returning user you can just directly go to My Content to resume editing your work. There are plenty of edit features available in here such as Edit Presentation, Add Slides, Download the Podcast and Add Question. Edit Presentation itself allows users to manage your slides, manage audio (including recording and adding background audio), add attachment and questions as well as comes with other basic function of Print, View, Share and Delete. 

Figure 3: Edit Presentation

To narrate your presentation, click on the Record Audio and you will need to choose your recording method: via mobiles or computer microphone. 

What if I stumbled or forget my points? Will it affect my presentation? Well, obviously it's not. Brainshark won't even allow it to happen. There will be Retry, Discard and Save buttons displayed once you've finished narrating each slide show. You can always play your recording first before deciding to save and continue with the next slide or to delete and record a new one. Click End Recording Session once finished and you can start embedding your presentation in your blog or sharing it with your friends. Simple! 

Figure 4: Narrating your slide show

A lot to take in? I get you. Click here for Russell Stannard's easy peasy lemon squeezy Brainshark Tutorial. 

Example of Voiced-PowerPoint Presentation

TIPS: 

Once finished, don't forget to change the status of your presentation from INACTIVE to ACTIVE. This will allow your work to be accessible for public viewers. 

Brainshark & Relevance in Learning:

Blended Learning Era:

My personal view of technology in learning and teaching is that ICT is meant to supplement the whole process, not to take away the traditional role of the teacher and students' face-to-face classroom instruction. Brainshark as the medium for this hybrid learning fits the concept perfectly as it combines both teacher-students classroom interaction with computer-mediated activities and together it forms an integrated instructional approach. Adopting Brainshark in learning would mean that distant learning is no longer a barrier. Teachers could have virtual classes with their students and easily link them with extra online materials for homework or exam preparation. Or even better teachers could get their lessons recorded through voiced-PowerPoint presentation for absent students and indirectly make learning more accessible to them regardless of where they are. The whole idea of employing Brainshark for blended learning does not only offer flexibility and convenience on both teachers and students parts, but also is aimed for developing learners' independent learning skills in a long run. 

You might want to consider the balance between such online instruction and direct interaction with your students, however, depending on their learning level because obviously blended learning (particularly with Brainshark) will require them to have at least basic knowledge in ICT.  I would not recommend Brainshark for a supplement learning for students with pre-intermediate level and below because I think less advanced learners would benefit more in real classroom instruction rather than virtual. 

Why It Is Recommended?

• The skeleton of an integrated learning: Combines speaking, writing as well as listening inextricably.
• A source for assessment: Teacher could use students works on Brainshark to assess their learning formatively.
• A practice platform: Students could email their presentation to the teacher and have it assessed virtually before the actual day of the evaluation day.
• Reduce students' affective filter: Students can present their works through voiced-presentation without having to worry to talk in front of the whole class - lowers their anxiety and indirectly increases their confidence in speaking.
• Free! Everybody loves free stuff. :)
• Provide students with a reason for speaking.
• A room for creativity development: Brainshark allows students to get creative as they are able to add background musics, questions for presentation, audio clips and so forth.
• Gain wider audiences: Brainshark's links can be emailed and embedded in blogs.
• Accessibility: Brainshark presentations can be viewed public (unless you set it as inactive)

Some Shortcomings:

• Since this tool only allows for voiced-based presentation, assessing speaking skills (particularly fluency and accuracy) could be an issue as students may have the script written and they just read it aloud. 
• Time constraint: Making a voiced presentation is a time consuming process - not suitable for a classroom activity.
• Feedback issue (this will be discussed in Recommendation section below)
• Proper microphones are needed if students want to narrate their presentations using computers or laptops. 

Classroom Activities with Brainshark:

Brainshark & Feedback Issue: Recommendations

Since voiced-based tasks are often highly personalized, finding the right way to channel feedback to students' works has been a major concern on the teacher's part. The question is how should teachers  deal with it? Here are some of my humble recommendations:

1. Peer evaluation: Presentations do not always have to be individually assessed solely by the teacher - it could be exploited for peer-feedback activity. Get the students to assess one another by pairing them and this could be done as a follow-up activity after creating their own Brainshark presentation. Feedback from peers are believed to have more impacts on students' learning as it increases their awareness of their own mistakes by correcting their friends' work. 
2. Group / Whole Class evaluation: Besides serving as an evaluative basis for groupwork activity, assessing Brainshark presentations in groups also allows for a discussion platform where students get to communicate and rationalise their judgements in checking errors in their tasks. Teacher, however, need to clearly explain the criteria for evaluation (eg: accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, cohesion factors) before letting them to assess their friends' presentations. 
3. Individual evaluation by teacher: Once in awhile it is always good for teachers to be able to assess students' work individually as it will provide them with more precise and accurate feedback on areas for improvement. 

P/S: Brainshark is sure worth a try especially for a novice user like me. I was impressed by its functionality when first exploring it. Try yours and let me know how you feel about it!

Thanks for reading! :)

My Rating on Brainshark's Usefulness:

5/5

Music is the new learning! Yays!

"If you have never tried using musics in these ways...please do!" - Chris Brewer

Lyrics Training? 

A super innovative web tool with embedded YouTube music videos of popular songs which aims at providing language learners with a fun way of practising language skills. Available in 6 languages of English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Dutch and the videos are  basically categorized into three mastery levels:

Easy (10% gapfill)

Intermediate (25%gapfill)

Expert (Full lyrics)

Tell Me More! 

To start using Lyrics Training is definitely very simple. All you need to do is go to the homepage and select your songs preference. 

Picture 1: Homepage

Lyrics Training automatically sets English as its default language so if you need to change your language selection you can just click on the all language button. Instead of using the search engine to find your preferred songs, alternatively you can click on the more option button and this tool will automatically filter your search according to your genres. 

Picture 2: All Language and More Options buttons. 

Once you have selected your music video, you can start the gap-filling game by choosing the level difficulty of Easy, Intermediate and Expert. Notice that if you press the Play Now button together with the Karaoke icon at the bottom-right without choosing the mastery level, the music video will play with the complete lyrics. Both Play Now and Karaoke buttons are designed to allow learners to preview the song before taking part in the game. When ready, you can easily press the Restart button (bottom-right) and select the game mode. 

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Picture 3: Previewing song with Karaoke mode on.

Picture 4: Game in progress - Intermediate.

Can't keep up with the song? Fret not. Lyrics Training is specifically tailored for your listening ability in a way that it will automatically stop until all the missing words are filled in. Akin to other animation games, this web tool also have several shortcuts which allow users to withdraw, restart or repeat the song respectively. Shortcuts function are as follows:

• Withdraw: To stop the game and play the karaoke version, giving users further review before trying again.
• Restart: To start all over from the beginning.
• Repeat: To listen again the last line.

Users also can skip the missing words by pressing the Tab key or replay the last line by pressing the backspace key. See below:

Picture 5: Shortcuts.

Game score will be tallied once the song is completed based on the time you took to complete the song and the numbers of missing words were filled in. The more missing words you filled in, the higher your score will be. Similarly, the higher level will result in higher scores since there is a more gap-fills required. If you wish to keep track on your progress with the Lyrics Training, you may sign up for a free account which enables you to access statistics page with scoring history and music videos information.

Having trouble digesting all the instructions? Help is at hand!: Russell Stannard's LyricsTraining Tutorial 

What It Has To Do With Learning?

Music and Autonomy:

The concept of using lyrics and musics for teaching and learning is as old as education itself. The difference with the Lyrics Training, however, is that it highlights the element of independent learning among learners with the help of technology (no more cassettes and radio!) and scaffolds for a life long acquisition by shifting the change in focus from the teacher to the student. This learning tool suits all language learners, be it beginners, intermediates or advanced adults, as it specifically categorizes the difficulty of mastery into three main levels making it convenient for learning at learners' own pace. What is more appealing is that Lyrics Training is well equipped with lots of helpful keys and guided instructions which makes it easier for novice learners to use the tool and indirectly encourages them for an independent learning in a long run. 

Behaviourist-favoured:
Skinner and friends remind us how important repetition is in learning: The more repetition you give to your students, the more likely it is that they will grasp the message. Interestingly, Lyrics Training discards the traditional drills and choral responses which are often defined the theory (they are dead boring, yes). Instead, the use of repetitive vocabulary is meshed in songs particularly through repeated chorus or lines. This kind of repetition would definitely considered unusual for normal conversation and redundant in speeches but it does not seem to be redundant in songs. Learners will incautiously repeat the hidden drills as they listen and sing along, making the repeated vocabulary to be better retained in their memory. 

Music and Motivation:

Because songs deal with the whole realm of human emotions which allow learners to relate with their own feelings and interests by making connections with them, songs could be a motivator that drives learners to learn forward and perform better in their learning. The more connections students can make with their learning, the more accessible the process will be. Unlike conversations, pauses in songs make songs more understandable to learners and allow them to find moments for their personal 'owning'. 

Other ticks for Lyrics Training:

• Encourages independent learning outside the classroom environment.
• Songs offer shorter, affective and simpler texts in the target language with a lot of vocabulary recycled.
• Definitely suits the purpose for testing and practising learners' listening skills.
• Authentic learning material: Lyrics Training is not tailored to fit specific learners' needs - it suits all level of language learners.
• Offers exposure to everyday-used English inclusive slang. 
• Free: Learning English with Adam Levine and Katy Perry for free? Now who wouldn't? :)
• Enriches learners with a wide range of vocabulary.
• Contextualized learning: Songs usually come in contexts, situations or stories.
• Avoids making up your own lyrics: I'm a type of person who could listen to a song thousand times and still have no idea what the lyrics are - seeing them written out as the video plays is indeed a major help.

Some minus points:

• Unfiltered slang and profanity: This could be a sizeable challenge for teachers if they want to use Lyrics Training for classroom purposes. 

Picture 6: Example of profanity element in songs.

• Over emphasis on reduced forms of syntax (wanna, gonna, hittin and so forth) might be confusing to some beginners and lower level learners.
• Comes with limited languages. 
• Only works with internet connection. 
• Proper headsets or earphones are necessary for classroom learning. 

Lyrics Training For Classroom Purposes:

1. Listening Competition: Teacher to select 5 pop songs and group students according to the pop song they like most. It does not matter if one group has more members than the others because the main objective for this activity is to get them practising their listening skill using their favourite songs. For a fair competition, the teacher will set the game level for all students (eg: intermediate) before they start battling with their group members. Once finished, students will compare their scores and the member with highest score for each pop song will be crowned the winners. If time permits, teacher can have another round of battle using different pop songs. 
2. Songs Discussion: Have the students to choose one song they enjoy most and have a round of lyrics training with the whole class (this is for classrooms with limited resources) as a warmer activity. Group the students with 4 members per team and ask them to butcher the song in relation to meaning and what they like or dislike about the lyrics. This activity could also be employed as a follow-up or a continuation task for the Listening Competition detailed above. 
3. Spelling Game: Have the Lyrics Training site ready on the projector. Using intermediate level songs (the beginner might be too easy and the expert might be too hard), teacher could exploit the gap-filling for a spelling game. 

Could It Be Improved? How?

Lyrics Training is indeed a great learning platform and it is ashamed that such fantastic tool only limits itself for mostly just listening and vocabulary skills through gap-filling exercises. What could be exploited further is that Lyrics Training should enable a forum or a chat room in the website for learners to discuss the meaning of their favourite songs with the other users. 

My Rating on Lyrics Training's Usefulness:

4  1/2 / 5

Bubblr For Learning.

What is Bubblr?

Bubblr is a useful web-based tool which enables users to create comic strips, complete with bubbles for thoughts and dialogues, from photos and other images stored in Flickr. The strips can be shared by email, saved to online archives, and shared with other users. As the site suggests, Bubblr is:

…a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr.com. Begin searching images and add bubbles to them. So easy! Just type a tag and and press go!

How to Use Bubblr?

1. Simply search tag words for photos (for example: autumn) and click the go button. 

2. Photos related to your tag will be displayed and you can start choosing your pictures by dragging any selected photo into the white working box.

3. When a picture is selected it automatically becomes the background for the entire frame so you cannot have two pictures in a box. Simply click before current or after current to add more frames or pictures.

4. To add speech bubbles or text boxes, simply drag the bubble icons onto your frames or pictures. Drag back the icons out of your frames if you decide to delete them.

5. Once it is done, click publish. 

6. To review your work, go to the archive.

7. You can blog your comic strips or presentation by embedding the html code or post the link into your facebook, twitter and other social networking mediums.

For a visual tutorial you can visit this link: Bubblr Screencast

Why Bubblr?

Supports Affective Theory of Learning: 

If you believe that learning outcomes improve when students are highly motivated and actively engaged with the task then this tool can be a perfect answer. Bubblr facilitates a great deal of creativity as students are able to create their own comic strips with preferred pictures, which can be greatly engaging and may ultimately increase their motivation for learning. Bubblr also recognizes the emotional influence in learning by enabling students to work around their preferences and personal interests which can highly contribute to their success in language learning. 

Personalized learning:

Learning styles vary - Bubblr revolves around the main principle of personalized learning which caters for students' own learning styles and supports them to learn in their own unique ways. It is highly visual appealing and allow students to work at their own pace and therefore is best utilized for individual tasks. This tool also enables your learners to make connections and relate with their own life and personal experiences which makes learning is more accessible to them.

The new realia:

The high quality and wide variety of pictures available means that you can reinvigorate any topic by making a visually appealing presentation. Because not all teaching topics can be presented by realia (you cannot expect to bring a polar bear into your classroom when teaching Antartica!), presenting a short Bubblr presentation to your class could be a useful warmer activity as it helps to captivate their interest into the topic and indirectly hold their attentiveness for the next activity. Most importantly while the use of realia is heavily subjected to practicality, Bubblr, on the other hand, breathes life into students' creativity and saves preparation time on teacher's part. 

Other plus points for using Bubblr:

• User-friendly: This tool is easy to navigate - suitable for all levels.
• Helps to develop writing skills: Bubblr makes it compulsory for students to comment on pictures, which means that they will always have the opportunity to develop their writing skills.
• Ownership element: Allows for a sense of personalization of ideas.
• It's free.
• Encourages creative writing: Creating poems or dialogues.
• Integrated skills: Presenting works will integrate speaking, writing and listening skills.
• Alternative for PowerPoint: Handy for visual presentations.
• Interesting: A fun way of classroom learning. Students can just have fun with the tool, creating funny, fictional stories. What child doesn't like comics? :)

Like any other web tools, however, Bubblr also have its own limitations. I will definitely not recommend Bubblr for a single period teaching (40 minutes) because it is definitely not a time-friendly tool. There are just too many pictures to choose from and the availability of thousands of pictures means that creating a picture strip is potentially to be quite time consuming. Most of the time the tags used to describe pictures are not precise and unreliable, and I really find this upsetting. My first experience with Bubblr last week was that it took me almost half an hour to just get the real autumn sceneries for my presentation. Similarly, the next time I searched for winter in the tag engine, the first 20 pictures that appeared were just frosted rooftops and white puppies. This really explains why Bubblr could be a potentially time consuming tool for learning (what more for a classroom task) because the tags do not always define the items that you are searching for. 

The other drawback I identified with Bubblr is that picture strips are automatically made public once you hit the publish button. This means that it will be made accessible to all viewers anonymously all around the globe. For an introvert like me, I don't quite fancy the idea of getting my works accessible to everyone because I really find it intimidating. Furthermore, there is no delete or hide button in the archive and this tool also allows for rating and automatically displays the view number. Because it would be really demotivating for students with lower confidence to get their works rated by someone they barely know, I'd recommend teachers who wish to use Bubblr for classroom purposes to clearly explain the implications or problems it might have on students' work before using it for language tasks. 

Other disadvantages:

• Inappropriate photos: Bubblr's tags work akin to Google's search engine - it does not filter images, some might be inappropriate for young learners.
• Limited source: The only source for photos is Flickr, students cannot embed pictures from other sources.
• Personal photos: Bubblr does not allow learners to upload their personal collections of photos.
• Lack of edit functions: Text boxes, bubbles, picture size and fonts cannot be adjusted or resized.
• Only works online: Bubblr cannot be used without internet connection.

Suggested Classroom Activities

1. Using a Bubblr slideshow for a writing prompt. This covers general topics such as travel, food, nature and hobbies.
2. Using Bubblr comic strips for creative writing: Students can choose their own cartoons or artists and make dialogues based on the given topics.
3. Using Bubblr for poetry: Students can create poems or limericks based on their preferred pictures and present their work in groups.
4. A perfect tool for icebreaking-based activity: Students to make a short slideshow about themselves and present it to their partners or the whole class.
5. Students to make a quick presentation on science comics such as the lifecycle of a butterfly or frog or the transformations of matter. 
6. Teacher to use Bubblr tool for teaching sequential or process like essays such as How to Make An Omelette or How to Brush Your Teeth. As a task, ask students to create one sequential slideshow each and present their work to the respective partners.

Example:

How Bubblr could be improved? 

• Upgrading the tool with edit functions. This includes Bubblr to have a font button  for more size and colour selection and the caption box to be resized. 
• Adding Tumblr and Google as the main sources instead of just Flickr for wider choices. 
• Embedding the animation element: Allow Bubblr to be more than just visually appealing, songs or animations can enhance students' interests and learning. 
• Enabling the extras functions: If Bubblr could incorporate graphs, charts or statistics, it would have an added-function to learning, particularly for presentation purposes. 

My Rating on Bubblr's Usefulness:

2 1/2 /5